People try to take good care of the external surface of their bodies. Specific skin related issues that people care about include good skin health free of infections, good skin tone and skin hygiene. Skin hygiene is generally achieved by keeping them free of infections. One way to tackle infections is to treat them with antimicrobials after the infection has set in. Another approach is to leave a minimal amount of antimicrobial active on the surface so that any invading microorganism is killed or inactivated to minimize spread of diseases. Yet another approach is improving the innate immunity of the desired surface.
The greatness of leave-on formulation is that it remains on the skin after the application. Therefore, one can deliver enhanced antimicrobial activity through leave-on formulations.
There are different antimicrobial compositions known in the art:
WO 2010/046238 (Unilever) discloses an antimicrobial composition for cleansing or personal care. It is an object of the present invention to provide antimicrobial compositions that have relatively fast antimicrobial action. Present inventors have surprisingly found that compositions comprising selected ingredients, namely thymol and terpineol, in selective propositions provide relatively quick antimicrobial action.
US 2004/0014818 (Boeck) discloses a bactericidal preparation in the form of a solution, cream or ointment compounded from photosynthesized hydrocarbons, isolates from hydrocarbons, 2-hydroxy-1-isopropyl-4-methyl benzene (thymol) and butylated hydroxytoluene and exemplifies many compositions, each having from 10 to 20 compounds having anti-bacterial efficacy.
GB508407 (Shepherd, 1938) describes an antiseptic product and method of preparation thereof comprising the steps of mixing salol and thymol in weight ratio of 1:3, melting the mixture and cooling to form crystals. An example of composition comprising 59 parts of the crystals, 41 parts of terpineol, 200 parts of red turkey oil and 200 parts of water is described. The composition described in this document comprises about 8% by weight thymol and about 8% by weight terpineol and is said to be particularly useful for disinfection of air.
Though the prior art discloses compositions for antimicrobial benefits, still there is a need to provide an antimicrobial leave-on composition which can have antimicrobial efficacy for long time with minimal amount of known antimicrobial ingredients.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an antimicrobial composition.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an antimicrobial composition for leave-on application.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an antimicrobial composition for leave-on application, which has prolonged antimicrobial activity.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide an antimicrobial composition for leave-on application that employs minimal amount of known antimicrobial compounds.
The present inventors while working extensively on this have surprisingly found that a composition with a little amount of thymol, terpineol and a cationic phospholipid complex provides an antimicrobial composition with good and prolonged antimicrobial activity which cannot be achieved by using little amount of only thymol and terpineol thereby satisfying one or more of the above mentioned objects.